


By Scale or Feathered Tail

by RobinNightngale



Series: Feathers, Scales, and Ink Blotted Tales [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Royalty AU, pen pal au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinNightngale/pseuds/RobinNightngale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason's boredom a the royal masquerade doesn't usually result in many good things, but this time around he's stumbled upon a hidden treasure full of surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Scale or Feathered Tail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wisia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisia/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy! It was a blast to write.

People swirled around on what seemed like clouds, their movements light and and airy as they floated around the dance floor.  The champagne didn’t help the affect as everyone seemed to be tipsy behind the masks that flickered in the torch light.  Everything about it was uncomfortable, from stink of alcohol on clumsy people’s breath to the itchy fabric of the costume he was wearing to the way the mask obscured his line of sight.  He was only getting a small pleasure out of the way he twisted the costume his older brother Dick and their sorta butler more like grandfather Alfred had picked out.  Of course he had to be a jay bird, both had found the pun utterly too delightful.  Jason had put an end to that once he scrounged all over the library to locate a version he wouldn’t immediately want to set alight.  Suffice to say, Dick was disappointed by the younger heir’s lack of blue.

Jason’s focus was more on how to alleviate his frustration and boredom which was very hard in the crowded banquet hall of the castle filled with nobility and other members of the royal court.  The only way he seemed able to get some amusement was ducking off the flocks of girls on Bruce.  They were more than willing to divert their attention from the prince to the king once they saw they  magically  had an opportunity to cling onto him.  Somehow he’d already done it three times without Bruce getting his hands on him.

At the fourth time, he stopped as he ducked back into the crowd.  From somewhere there was a pair of eyes watching him carefully, paying attention as he tortured his old man.  It was an odd sensation, something he wasn’t used to, not with the intensity that came off of them.  Searching slowly, Jay tried to locate the source of the feeling amongst the colorful crowd.  As his eyes passed over a group he saw someone dressed in dark maroon quickly look away.  A smirk crossed the man’s lips, he’d found the source, and maybe a new way to amuse himself for a bit.

Making his way across the floor, he never lost sight of the young man that was now expertly bobbing and weaving through the crowd towards the balcony doors. With a heavy hand on the shoulder, Jason stopped him right in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear, “You find something interesting?”

There was fire in the blue eyes that met his teal, a fire that seemed fitting, especially for one dressed as a daragon.  “Are you really bored that easily that the same thing done on repeat makes you almost fall over in a fit of laughter?”

For once this evening the prince was thankful for the mask he wore as his cheeks started to feel warm, he’d hoped that no one had really noticed that incident.  “Are you gonna tell me you’re not equally bored?”  He was taking shot in the dark, but something told him that his new acquaintance might have something in common with him.

The young man glanced out towards the balcony, then back at the prince, “Requirements usually tend to bore me.”

“This is a requirement for you?” Jason raised his eyebrows.

“Isn’t it for you?” the other shot back at him as he slipped from the larger man’s grasp and onto the balcony.  “Finally some slight quiet…”

Jason’s curiosity was peaked, the young man must be from part of the court if he was here, but he couldn’t place him.  Logically he must have never seen him before, he would have remembered someone who looked anything close to this man who couldn’t be but a few years younger than him.  Even under the costume he could tell his companion was well built, and just his demeanor alone conveyed a mysterious aloofness of a puzzle Jay was feeling compelled to crack.

“You know… I did manage to sneak some pumpkins down to the archery range…” He said offhandedly, examining his nails.

There’d never been a time before where he’d been so glad he’d looked up, the young man’s eyes were bright and the grin that spread from ear to ear made Jason’s heart skip for some reason. “Oh you’re so on.”

Before more could be said the prince took a running leap off the balcony, vaulting over the railing.  His companion looked over the edge, eyes slightly wide, but smiled more as he heard the whoop of excitement and saw the drop wasn’t high. In no time at all he had lept over the edge and was laughing next to Jay.  They didn’t really bother to be quiet as the made their way to the range, mostly it was filled with Jason probing his mysterious new friend for information and clues about himself.

The information came fairly willingly, but he only dropped tidbits that could be used to figure out who he was, not that second oldest of the royal family actually paid attention to who actually attended the court.  Soon though his focus turned on setting up the pumpkins at various distances and scampering back to where the dragon was knocking his first arrow.

“So uh, what do I call you anyways?” For some reason he felt awkward, it might have been the cut of the costume, or the sporadic feathers, or maybe it was just the man besides him.

An arrow whized through the air, thunking dead into the center of a distant pumpkin, “I’d feel insulted you didn’t know before, but then again you don’t  do  events as much as I wish I  didn’t.   Until you figure it out you can call me Drake, Jason.”  The grumble that got only made him laugh as he sent another arrow flying.

By the end of the night every single pumpkin nicked from the kitchen now resembled a porcupine, and the two men felt as if they’d known each other for ages not just one night coming to a close by the rosey hints of dawn.

“I should be off,” the dragon squinted towards the rising sun, shielding his eyes with his hand.

“If I don’t know your  actual name  how the hell am I gonna keep in contact with you,” the other man’s tone was nearly petulant.

For a moment Drake seemed to pause before continuing the motion he’d started and putting away the bow, “If you really want to stay in contact, leave that to me.”

“Fine,” Jason whined, too tired and happy to think of how immature and unprince like he must sound, though it wasn’t as if that bothered him too much.

  
  


Three days, twenty spikey pumpkins, and fifty stalls to be mucked, that was what he was left with since the dragon boy had come into his life and then seemingly disappeared again.  He shouldn’t be too torn up about it, he really shouldn’t, not when he had to focus on the punishment of cleaning stalls for a month for destroying what would have been pumpkin pie.  But of course he was sitting in his bed, tired, reading poetry by Garsenda in the original Latin, and thinking of the way their motions had been in sync as they shot arrow after arrow.

All attempts to continue ruminating were stopped at the sound of tapping against the wooden shutters.  Frowning, Jason got up and unhooked the latch.  What could barely be excused as windows weren’t large enough for a person to sit on, let alone get through.  He knew for sure, Dick and him had put it to the test.  To his surprise though, before him stood a hawk glaring at him as if  he’d  taken far too long.  A moment later it fluttered past him and into the room, perching on his desk.

“Hey, what the hell are you-” he stopped himself as he noticed the scroll attached to the birds leg.  Carefully he approached the winged creature, all too aware that it could do some serious harm if he pissed it off.  Slipping the scroll out of the leather tube, he sat down to scan the letter.  A grin lit up his face as he saw a signature at the end that simply said Drake.  “Oh I’d hug you if I didn’t think you’d peck my eyes out.”

Written in mess scrawl, the letter apologize for how long it took, but also went into how happy he was to keep in contact with him.  He read about the man’s castle, and the land he lived in, about what had happened during the trip back, and how his parents had argued the entire way.  Every bit Jason read, he found enrapturing. Not only was he learning about his new friend, but he had found someone that wasn’t immediately treating him like some untouchable priss.

“Well birdy, relax your wings for a bit, I ain’t writing till tomorrow or something,” Jay yawned and collapsed back on the bed, still holding the letter.  It wasn’t long after that he fell into a deep and content sleep, the hawk watching over him.

The next day though was more filled than he had realized, training with his sister Cass and Dick for almost all of the morning, than an impromptu horseback riding race against Damian.  Of course after that Bruce wanted him to sit in on a planning meeting with many of the other noblemen and knights.  By dinner time writing a letter today had slipped into the back of his mind, and he’d utterly forgotten about the bird in his room.

As he trudged up the stone steps for some much needed relaxation, he started hearing some weird sounds near his door.  Carefully opening the door, he peeked his head into the bedroom.  Jaw dropping wide open, a strangled noise somehow made it out of him.

Nothing could describe the current horror he felt, his stomach dropped through the floor as he looked at his torn up room. Papers and feathers were everywhere, one of his pillows laid split open while the other one had bird shit on it.  “No…” he wailed as he slammed the door closed, searching everywhere for the offending bird.  “Come here you little shit, I don’t care if you’re Drake’s bird Imma pluck you then cook you up!”

Just as the words were out of his mouth his eyes locked onto the bird perched on top of a book he had been reading a few nights ago.  It was currently open and a page was in the talons of the pissed off looking bird.  As soon as the human teal met the hawk’s amber eyes, it started to slowly rip at the page.

“No no no no!!” He raced forward and it tore at the page even faster. Freezing, he glared at the creature.  “What, the hell, do you, want?!”  The hawk looked towards the closed window and Jay smacked himself in the face, “I did this to myself... “ he groaned as he slowly walked to the shutters and tossed them open.  He was almost positive he got smacked in the face with a wing on the way out.  Sighing as he turned around, he ran a hand through his hair, this was gonna be hell to clean up.

Starting his first letter to Drake with, “Your bird’s an asshole and I may of just lost him”, didn’t seem like the best idea but he’d worry about that later.  He had to first figure out exactly what the stupid hawk had destroyed.

Little did he know that his response would be met with laughter and the advice to let  Fladrif out to fly around every once and a while.  Apparently his friend had a cruel streak in his sense of humor, that or he just really loved reading Jason rant about the infuriating hawk.

Over the next few months it started to become clear that his pen pal enjoyed him ranting about everything.  Their discussions on topics varying from some kingdoms still banning female knights to the literacy of the masses, often times took up pages of parchment before they even went into how their days had been. 

Never before had he felt this at ease talking to someone, sharing freely his thoughts and feelings.  He had even told him about a few of the memories he had of his mother; that was a subject he even felt uncomfortable bringing up with Dick.  During the night he found his mind wandering to the young man in the dragon costume as he attempted to fall asleep, the figure flickering in and out of his dreams.  It was stirring up all sorts of feelings that he couldn’t exactly put a name to; even the letters from Donna and Kory didn’t have this sort of effect on him.

In one of their exchanges Drake had even asked what he thought of the ladies milling around, attempting to win his favor.  His response was candid, he thought that the whole ‘courting someone for marriage’ thing was awful, dowries made him want to throw things, and the ladies hovering and waiting on him start to the process was just plain annoying and not his type.

For some reason he found the question uncomfortable.  Maybe it was just the general subject, but there was slight suspicion in his brain that said the true reason was the inevitable follow up question that he was dreading.

Of course the inevitable came to fruition, a few days later the response came, and amidst the relatively normal bits of the letter was the question that made the world fall away and all sound to become muffled. So what  is  your preference?

Almost in a trance, the prince stared at the sheet of parchment that was supposed to hold his response.  Before he could stop himself he wrote one simple word;  you .  A knock at the door brought Jason abruptly back to reality.  Instantly he was scurrying around the room, attempting to get the ink to dry so he could just shove the paper into the tube and send the bird away without anyone the wiser.

“Jason, we’re having a family meeting in a couple minutes, stop being a grouchy bum.” 

“Hold your horses Dick face!!” the younger man hollered as he stuffed the scroll in and hoisted the bird up from where it had perched itself, and carried it to the window. “Come on ya flying piece of driftwood, get.”  He shooed the perturbed hawk out just in time for his door to open.

“Talking to yourself again Little Wing?”

“Doing my best Bruce impression, the man’s going batty.”

The older brother chuckled and rolled his eyes, slinging his arm over the other’s shoulders and steering him towards the door.  Jason was few inches taller than him and much broader, yet he found himself treated as if he was still thirteen.  The two quipped the entire way down, only stopping when Alfred shot them a look as they sat down.

Cass and Damian were already there as Bruce tried to look busy by shuffling some paperwork.  At a glance he nodded to the older boys before standing up and addressing his family as a whole.  “Normally around this time I start making my rounds to all the different lords and nobles around the kingdom to make sure that everything that they’re doing is in order.  This time around I figure we all deserve an extra bit of time off also, so all of us are going to take a week vacation in one of the villas.”

He was too young for this many heart attacks consecutively, it had to be detrimental to  something.   Before anymore could be said he was already hurriedly stammering how he should stay and watch over the main castle.  There was no way he could be away for a week when waiting for a response to  that  letter, besides the bird would probably kill him.

Bruce seemed completely unaware of Jay’s excuses as he kept talking, “We’ll be staying at the one by Janet and Jack, they’ve got a son a few years younger than Jason I think.”

Cass nodded emphatically, “The Drake estate is nice, lots of things to climb.”

Mid excuse Jason froze, “What did you say?”

“Janet and Jack Drake are a lord and lady that rule the land two days ride from here.  They have a son named Tim also whose well very adept at a lot,” Dick repeated for him.

“We have Drakes in the royal court?!”

The look he got from the rest of his family spoke volumes.  It roughly translated to, “God Jason you need to pay more attention to people, even Cass knew this information.”

He wanted to slap himself and maybe stick his head in the oven.  How could he have missed the biggest clue to who his mysterious dragon boy was, his head must have been thicker than everyone usually said.

“So, let me get it straight.  We’re going to the Drake’s for a week? When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

An almost devilish smile crossed his lips, “Never mind I’m game.”  It was time to see how much his infatuation liked being the one surprised.


End file.
